WASHINGTON – When it comes to climate change, cities have had to step in where federal and state governments have failed, five Democratic mayors from across the country told a Senate panel Wednesday. Now they want help.

“The lack of attention from the White House and Congress is causing us as a country to lose ground in the spaces of innovation, economic opportunity, and technological advancement,” Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto testified. “However cities are filling this void and continuing to invest in solutions using American ingenuity.”

He and his fellow mayors from Atlanta, Honolulu, Saint Paul and Portland spoke to a friendly panel, all Democrats. It was the first hearing of the Senate minority caucus’s Special Committee on Climate Change.

Chairman Brian Schatz of Hawaii said he hopes to bring reluctant Republicans onboard and is disappointed they aren’t more interested in moving bipartisan legislation such as bills to mitigate climate change and protect flood-prone communities.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., had proposed to create a bipartisan committee but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., refused to act on it.

“This committee should be bipartisan, and one day it will be, but right now we cannot wait,” Mr. Schatz said Wednesday. “We will not wait for the other side to catch up to the severity of this climate crisis.”

Some Republicans including President Donald Trump have rejected scientific warnings about climate change and say they doubt humans are contributing to global warming.

Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland urged the committee to reframe the argument from an environmental one to an economic one to bring conservatives on board.

“Hit that resistance head on by connecting carbon-reduction strategies to economic prosperity,” he urged. “The reality is there is a lot of money to be had by being green – through green energy research and development, through green manufacturing, through green industrial opportunities, through green economic investment. There’s a lot of shared economic prosperity to be had here, and for some of your colleagues you probably need to shift the focus towards an economic strategy.”

Mr. Peduto said the right climate-change policies will naturally improve the economy and create jobs.

“There needs to be federal programs that are created that aren’t just looking at how much our carbon reduction is but what the economic benefit will be, what the opportunities for employment will be, and how this will help areas that have been left behind. If that type of program could be created,” he said, “we could lead the world in this next industrial revolution.”

Mr. Peduto described his city’s climate action plan and the ONEPGH Resilience Strategy that seeks to mitigate the environmental, economic and social consequences of global warming.

Pittsburgh is moving toward using 100% renewable power for city operations, to transition to a fossil-fuel-free fleet of city vehicles, and to reduce emissions by half within 11 years.

Mayors asked for senators’ help to do more.

Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter asked lawmakers to pressure the president to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and to increase investments in public transit and in research and development to reduce pollution through technology.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottom asked for more investment in grants and more lending authority to support renewable energy and workforce development.

Mr. Walker asked lawmakers to provide more infrastructure funding and to remove restrictions on local tolling of federal roads.

Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell asked for nationwide carbon pricing and for an end to immunity for oil companies that knowingly pollute the environment.

Many conservatives on and off Capitol Hill already have expressed opposition to some of those plans, particularly carbon pricing, which they’ve warned would put American companies at a disadvantage in a global marketplace.

In closing remarks Wednesday Mr. Schatz suggested that he doesn’t expect action while Republicans control the Senate but that he will continue to schedule hearings on the issue.

“We will continue to lay the predicate for climate action for if and when we are in a position to take action in 2021,” he said.

Washington Bureau Chief Tracie Mauriello: tmauriello@post-gazette.com; 703-996-9292 or on Twitter @pgPoliTweets.

First Published: July 17, 2019, 10:02 p.m.